Friendly fire melee - love it!

[Berserker Pride]

Realistic?! Nothing could be less realistic than accidently chopping a teammate in half! You aren't a serial killer and you have control over your weapon.  It isn't a ****ing missile that has been fired.  IRL you pull your swing subconsciously if a friendly is in the way.  The resulting hit would cause no damage. About to hit a friendly?  Turn the blade so you hit him with the flat while slowing it down at the same time. At worst you would stumble him.  The fact that it is always set to goddamn reflect only makes it worse.  A ff melee would realistically make way more sense and be better for gameplay if it simply stumbled an ally.  That would be enough to get him killed anyway and would still force a little bit of tactical positioning.  But full damage on an accidental hit is ****ing frustrating and not realistic in the slightest.  The melee swings are far too wide and have too little control to include such a thing.  People will rage quit so many times of that happening a certain number of times before they quit the game altogether.  Then you people who think you know jack about realism will play on barren servers.

 

[Alhanalem]

Welcome to the world of archers.

well as I just mentioned in my edits above, it wasn't really a big deal for archery. But for melee, no matter how much skill you put into it, your chances of commiting suicide just drastically increased. Frankly, in my opinion, if I'm within melee range of someone and I'm aiming my attacks directly at them and a friendly player walks into it, it's his fault, not mine. I shouldn't drop dead because someone else wasn't being careful.

=edit= sigh...

Realistic?! Nothing could be less realistic than accidently chopping a teammate in half!

So, tell me what's more realistic about dying when a stray melee swing hits another person? Accidentally killing allies absolutely is realistic. Let's timewarp to the 13th century, put you on a battlefield and you can just watch and see how hard it is to tell who's on your side. Friendly fire happened, and it happened a lot. It still happens today. Or maybe you haven't heard the stories on the news about planes dropping bombs on allies or accidentally shooting people you thought were the enemy and turned out not to be.

IT HAPPENS. No, we aren't "serial killers" (theres ridiculous extremes for you again) but that doesn't make actual friendly fire unrealistic.

 

[Teala]

Friendly fire is in most FPS games and in some if you do it to much (like in BF after 2 friendly kills) you get kicked from the server.  There is a timer so it does remove a friendly kill after a period of time.  But most FPS games have friendly fire.

 

[Berserker Pride]

FPS stands for First Person SHOOTER!  A sword is not a gun.

 

[Alhanalem]

FPS stands for First Person SHOOTER!  A sword is not a gun.

christ, no ione said it was. Just drop the S if it makes you happy, even though this game does have shooting (bows, crossbows, throwing weapons....) The point is this game's multiplayer has many functional similarities inherited from FPS games. This is a game where you have a first or third person view, and the goal is to kill things. It's close enough.

Just have normal, non-reflecting friendly fire and auto-kick the griefers who do it too much. I don't see how this can't work for everyone.

 

[Berserker Pride]

The swing starts behind your ear.  You can't avoid accidently hitting a teammate even if you wanted to.  The mechanics and animations are just not set up properly to have this be functional.  My idea would still get wild swingers killed without adding more ways to grief and more ****ing frustration to the game.  Its a game it is supposed to be fun.  And full melee ff damage is not realistic.  You can stop a blade at any time or at least slow it down a hell of a lot and turn the killing edge away from your buddy.  I haven't heard anyone refute that point.  Stumbling acknowledges that yes you did strike your ally but you turned the blade at the last second and only smacked him with the side of it.  It would be the same as the current blow ingame where you fail to strike your opponent properly and simply bump him.

EDIT: In any case armagan has said that it is a bug.  But I wouldn't mind seeing stumbling added.

 

[Alhanalem]

This adds so much more realism to the game, even though I didn't get what was happening until attacking my teammate and killing myself 5 times 

What's realistic about keeling over when you hit a friendly target? Enlighten me.
Without the damage reflection, I would be more inclined to agree, but this should be a non-default server option, and not the norm.

if you see an admin online, just ask them to change the FF settings. We can switch ff to damage self, damage both, damage ally, and off.

Can the damage to the ally be scaled? or is it full damage only?

And full melee ff damage is not realistic.  You can stop a blade at any time or at least slow it down a hell of a lot and turn the killing edge away from your buddy.  I haven't heard anyone refute that point.

The person swinging has to be aware of the fact that it's a friend. Most cases of real friendly fire, the attacker is unaware. When you're on a chaotic 13th century battlefield with hundreds and hundreds of men in close combat, it's not always easy to tell friend from foe. If you spend time thinking about it, you're likely to have your head cut off.
It's realistic. It happens. I haven't seen anyone refute it. It might not be what's best for the game, but to declare friendly fire that damages the target "unrealistic" is way off base.

It would be the same as the current blow ingame where you fail to strike your opponent properly and simply bump him.

Honestly, this is the way it was before and I don't see what the problem is, as you said. if you DO know its your ally, you will hesitate or try to stop the swing. As far as real friendly fire is concerned, it happens when you AREN'T fully aware that the person being hit was a friend. Ask anyone in the military. Friendly Fire happens.

My whole issue with your post was calling friendly fire damaging the other unrealistic, *in comparison to friendly fire damaging oneself.* I see what you're actually trying to say though, and I THINK i'm on your side at this point. :p

 

[ares007]

Alhanalem, I don't think we have so differing opinions as we may once have thought.

Berserker Pride, it is quite ignorant of you to assume that you would automatically stop your swing if you recognize you're about to hit a teammate. Have you ever been real melee combat, much less with swords? Even in bar fights, people hit their friends on accident more frequently than you might realize (regardless of alcohol). When your blood is boiling, people are getting killed, and you are killing people, you will attack anyone that appears to be about to threaten you; it is just survival instinct that you can't get past. So even if someone started a swing at you and stopped himself, there's a good chance you would kill him or attack him because he was threatening death against you.

And like Alhanalem has implied, you probably don't realize how difficult it is to recognize friend from foe in the middle of the bloody/sweaty chaos of battle. Perhaps you just don't understand that melee combat is not clean, not controlled, not pretty, not very organized, and so on. Melee combat (and combat in general) is gritty, dirty, chaotic, cruel, crude, and unpredictable.

Not to mention that in game, you can still stop your swing when you realize you're about to hit someone.

In addition, instead of complaining about the FF, maybe you should try to improve your team skills.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Honestly, this is the way it was before and I don't see what the problem is, as you said. if you DO know its your ally, you will hesitate or try to stop the swing. As far as real friendly fire is concerned, it happens when you AREN'T fully aware that the person being hit was a friend. Ask anyone in the military. Friendly Fire happens.

FF happens because the military uses guns.  You can't have the same rules with guns as swords.  If you kill someone with a melee weapon you saw him looked in his eye and decided to kill him.  I don't imagine the army accidently knifes each other that often.  The game doesn't have the degree of control to properly strike around an ally.  You only have the 4 attack directions.  A diagonal downward slash would be ideal for striking around your friends, but M&B doesn't have that attack. 

Stumbling an ally has never been ingame before.  Your weapon simply bounces off your ally with no harm or consequences for either.  And it was fairly buggy too and sometimes allowed the end of a weapon to strike through an ally and kill an enemy.  That could definitely use an improvement.  I understand that melee combat is too wild.  But more ff damage especially with really wide attacks that start out of your field of view would murder the fun.  It is much simpler to avoid hitting one point with a bow than it is to not accidently sweep your blade through an entire area.

EDIT:Ingame everyone wears the same uniforms.  So you do know who is friend and who is foe.  If you want to play a game were your 180 swing arbitrarily murders friend and foe then feel free.  But I would quickly tire of it.  And bar fights are complete chaos no uniforms or identifying marks.  And come to think of it I suspect the drunk ones hit their friends more than the sober ones.

Inertia is ingame so you can't always stop your swing.  Not to mention my point about the lack of attacks to hit around friends and the inability to turn your blade to avoid lethal damage.  Throw your swing starting out of your field of view on the pile.

 

[MaHuD]

Berserker is correct. End of story.
Its way easier to control your fire if you are shooting with a gun, throwing a grenade or whatever Than fighting in a big melee clash.
M & B doesnt have enough/the correct attacks to be able to not hit your teammates with your swings. (Unless you are only stabbing and doing overhead attacks in a formation... = easy to block = long drawn fight of pikes and other long weapons (Or some arrows/throwing stuff will finish you off)

And its called 'Friendly Fire' for a reason you know.

 

[Alhanalem]

FF happens because the military uses guns.  You can't have the same rules with guns as swords.

You absolutely can. If you really believe no one ona battlefield in these times ever struck someone who happened to be on their side, you're mistaken.

It's hard to make sense of your post. The first part, which I quoted, seems to be in opposition with me. The second paragraph seems to be more on my side, suggesting that the existing system just needs fixing (I only meant to say though that your swing *normally* stops when you hit an ally, rather than continues to go into their flesh. But as you mentioned, sometimes it glitches and you swing right through them and hit someone else on the other side.)
The third paragraph once again seems to take opposition.
There exist similar armors on more than one faction. The only thing that makes it easy to tell who is who is the icons floating over teammate's heads, but using this to support an argument is flawed because that's a gameplay aid and not anything to do with realism.

In short, your post is really confusing.

 

[ares007]

And I would challenge anyone to get a wooden sword and a punching bag and put two friends about 3 feet to either side. Then try striking the punching bag with anything but thrusts or overhead attacks (of course diagonal attacks, but those still come from the top. The 2-handed animations actually are diagonal attacks as well).

Now try this (wielding a sharp sword this time). Have three angry lions released at you and your friends (who are 3 feet to either side) and see whether or not you hit your friends with your sword. You might; you might not. But do this over and over again, and there's no avoiding it (unless you actually have team skill and coordination which is the whole point of what I'm saying)

 

[Berserker Pride]

Now try avoiding hitting your friends with only purely horizontal swings.  It would be even harder ingame than real life.  You don't have a downward swing starting from the top and striking downward to either side diagonally ingame.  You only have the big slow hack.  Big slow hack gets you killed ingame.  Your example actually proves my point.  The control isn't there to allow this.  Sure if you wanted we could include people going battle crazy and slaying everyone around them but I don't see the fun in getting stabbed in the back by my own teammate.

 

[ares007]

That's why it should be a server option, so that people who have no teamwork skill or tactics can can still have fun in team games.

But perhaps you just don't appreciate the extra depth in teamwork tactics this adds to melee fights between teams.

Remember, position first, fight later. Individual skill is only important once you have the correct positioning which comes from teamwork skill.

 

[Berserker Pride]

You dodged the point.  Sure if you wanted you could include melee ff as a server option.  But without useful attacks to avoid teammates it would be a broken mode.  It would 100 percent split everyone up into microduels everywhere.  So there would in fact be less teamwork.  And the extent of positioning would be to get the hell away from your homicidal teammates. Why include a broken mode in the game?  Give me some useful attacks beyond just stab in close quarters fighting and we'll talk.  I would rather teams fight closely together than scatter out with no team battle dynamic at all.

 

[Rhade]

Berserker is correct. End of story.
Its way easier to control your fire if you are shooting with a gun, throwing a grenade or whatever Than fighting in a big melee clash.
M & B doesnt have enough/the correct attacks to be able to not hit your teammates with your swings. (Unless you are only stabbing and doing overhead attacks in a formation... = easy to block = long drawn fight of pikes and other long weapons (Or some arrows/throwing stuff will finish you off)

And its called 'Friendly Fire' for a reason you know.

No.
Melee friendly fire needs to stay.

It discourages zerging, and swarming, which are skill-less and mind numbing.
You shouldn't be able to pack up and have everyone go crazy with melee.

You should be aware of your swings, and accountable for them.

I love melee FF, it's been something I've been hoping for since I got into beta.
Say no to melee spam in packs.

 

[Rhade]

You dodged the point.  Sure if you wanted you could include melee ff as a server option.  But without useful attacks to avoid teammates it would be a broken mode.  It would 100 percent split everyone up into microduels everywhere.  So there would in fact be less teamwork.  And the extent of positioning would be to get the hell away from your homicidal teammates. Why include a broken mode in the game?  Give me some useful attacks beyond just stab in close quarters fighting and we'll talk.  I would rather teams fight closely together than scatter out with no team battle dynamic at all.

Cite all the real life examples of lions and make believe militaries you'd like.

I've been playing mount and blade for years, and beta heavily for months.
I played tonight with melee FF, and did just fine.
My teammates weren't hacking me, nor was I hacking them; I chose my positioning well, and my angles of attack.

I actually enjoy a game where people need to be aware of their allies' movement, and adjust accordingly instead of "gogogozergzerg swingwsswingswing."
The attacks are 100% viable in control to allow melee FF, I've done it, it works.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Swarming happens IRL.  At least they can't grab you, haul you down, and shove a rondel through your greathelm.  If you are alone against three guys you are at a disadvantage make no mistake.  Making this change would make naked guys running into groups swinging a greatsword like a psycho an effective tactic.  The lone fighter has the advantage of a fast backpedal.  Use it and put your opponents in each other's way.  There is no way to control the rediculously wide horizontal swings.  And the overhead slash is too slow to be useful.  That leaves one useful attack for close quarters which kinda makes blocking simple. 
Don't run in alone it isn't that hard to avoid.

I didn't cite goddamn lions Ares did.  And his example actually proved my point rather than his.

 

[Arch3r]

Melee friendly fire really helps spears in group warfare. Right now 2handers are the best at group warfare which is highly unrealistic. I like it too and would like to have it as server option. However, the attack bouncing off, unless it passes the inertia-point so it can't be canceled anymore, would be good too.

Swarming happens IRL.  At least they can't grab you, haul you down, and shove a rondel through your greathelm.  If you are alone against three guys you are at a disadvantage make no mistake.  Making this change would make naked guys running into groups swinging a greatsword like a psycho an effective tactic.  The lone fighter has the advantage of a fast backpedal.  Use it and put your opponents in each other's way.  There is no way to control the rediculously wide horizontal swings.  And the overhead slash is too slow to be useful.  That leaves one useful attack for close quarters which kinda makes blocking simple. 
Don't run in alone it isn't that hard to avoid.

I didn't cite goddamn lions Ares did.  And his example actually proved my point rather than his.

Adding an extra thrust to replace the overhead swing for spears and maybe one-handed swords too, would solve that mostly.

 

[Berserker Pride]

Adding an extra thrust to replace the overhead swing for spears and maybe one-handed swords too, would solve that mostly.

Good idea first one besides "ff is cool" I've seen so far without anyone looking at the consequences.
Having swings only damage past the inertia point is good too.  At least your blade would be in front of you so you wouldn't be accidently chopping someone then.  Then it would be murder haha.  Still shouldn't be full damage though due to the fact that you can rotate the killing edge so it doesn't hit your ally clean.  And if you hit someone before the inertia point(and probably behind you) it would stumble him and make your blade bounce out of control.  That kind of system would be workable.